Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Musical! (2020)

I’m going to be completely transparent with you to start off this post. It took me a while to figure out what it was going to be. I couldn’t come up with a good topic pertaining to what I watched. That was probably due to the fact that Dr. Suess’ The Grinch Musical was one of the more painful experiences I’ve had while writing Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. I had trouble getting through it. Every idea I came up with didn’t feel right. I settled on just plain roasting the movie in a way I don’t typically do. However, when I began the opening paragraph, the words started flowing, and I found a topic. I found the topic that I could write about. So here goes.

Stories can be told in many different ways. I’m not only talking about movies when I say that. Sure, I’ve mentioned multiple times throughout this blog’s life that originality isn’t in a story, but in how a story is told. I stand by that. Just because Over the Top and Real Steel shared a story about an absent father meeting up with his son after the mother’s illness and the two bonding over a road trip involving a sport, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have some originality in how those story beats were put together and used. There’s another way a story could be told differently that I haven’t brought up quite as often. The same story could be adapted into a different medium.

Bringing a property to a new medium can lead to some interesting things. Much of the story would likely remain in the new form, but some changes must be made to allow the story to flow properly in its new form. A movie and a television show have different ways of doling out story. A novel and a comic book experience that same issue when adaptations happen. Stage plays, radio shows and podcasts, still photography, and video games each use different storytelling techniques which will require changes made to a story. Even adapting something from animation to live action or vice versa could lead to some major differences.

Those various adaptations were what brought me around to the topic of this post, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical, a “live” adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! that was produced by NBC in 2020. Only, it wasn’t live because of Covid protocols that were in place at that time. Hence the quotations. This NBC-produced television special was an adaptation of the stage musical, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical. Of course, that was an adaptation of the book How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

These, of course, weren’t the only adaptations made for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! I quickly mentioned the animated special from 1966. There was a live-action film starring Jim Carrey released in 2000. Another animated version was released by Illumination Entertainment in 2018, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as the holiday’s biggest grumpy Gus. A horror movie was even made. 2022 saw the release of The Mean One, directed by Steven LaMorte, who runs in the same circles as the people behind Terrifier 2, Terrifier 3, and Stream. A bunch of audio versions of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! were released throughout the years, as well. There have been numerous adaptations of the Christmas classic, with the NBC-produced musical being one of the newer versions.

The strange thing about Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! was that it wasn’t an adaptation of the source material. This wasn’t a feature-length television special based on the book. No no. This special was an adaptation of the stage musical. It was a third-generation adaptation. The book was adapted into a stage musical and the stage musical was then adapted into Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! I’ve only seen a few other properties go this way, most notably Little Shop of Horrors (movie to stage musical to musical movie) and Hairspray (movie to stage musical to musical movie). Usually, you just get re-adaptations of the source material. Or so the producers would like you to think.

To be honest, I don’t think that Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical was solely based on the book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! I would dare say it was a mixture of adapting the children’s book and the 1966 television special. It had the story of the book but took songs and the green colour of The Grinch from the television special. I would maybe even go so far as to say there was a chain of four versions. The book became the television special. The television special became the stage musical. The stage musical became the television special musical.

Having a chain of adaptations as long as the one that led to Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! on NBC could feel like a game of telephone. You know the game. One person tells something to another person and so on and so forth, until the message gets back to the first person. That message always gets distorted through its travels, to the point where it might be wholly different when it gets back around. Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! felt like that. It felt like a retelling of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! that had been filtered through dozens of people.

The first noticeable thing was the green Grinch. The original Dr. Seuss book didn’t have him as a green character. That was introduced in the 1966 television special. It’s a detail that has stuck around in every adaptation since. The stage musical had a green Grinch. The Jim Carrey portrayal was a green Grinch. The Illumination Entertainment version was a green Grinch. Every later iteration of The Green was green. Even the sequel book, How the Grinch Lost Christmas! portrayed the loveable crank as green.

After that, you get the music. That was also a detail added in the 1966 television special. There are few ways to portray music in a book. The lyrics could be there, sure, but the melodies not so much. Unless it is an audio book. The 1957 release of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was not an audio book. There were no songs. It was written in Dr. Seuss’ rhyming ways, but it wasn’t melodic at all. The television special introduced people to classics like You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch and Welcome Christmas. These same songs were reused in nearly every iteration of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, including both the stage musical and the NBC musical special.

Finally, there was the performance. I’m only going to bring up what I think influenced Matthew Morrison’s performance in Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! Based on what I saw, he gave a performance that was part stage musical and part Jim Carrey. It was performed as if to a grand audience in a theater. The way things were blocked. The way he projected, as if to the furthest person in the back. That sort of stuff. But his mannerisms were similar to what Jim Carrey had in his 2000 film adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It was as though Matthew Morrison used that 2000 film as the basis for his portrayal of The Grinch, and then added some flourishes from his stage background to make it feel more like a Broadway production.

As you can see, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical took inspiration from a variety of Grinch presentations. It took the story from the book, paired it with music from both the 1966 television special and the stage musical, and added a flourish of Jim Carrey mannerisms to create its own thing. I should also mention the set design, which felt ripped straight from the illustrations of the book. I don’t know if that was ported over from the stage musical or not, but I liked it in either case. It was the one thing I really liked about this NBC musical special. Each of these elements, pulled from different ways the story has been told, came together to form this one. It was the result of everything before it, many inspirations all being mixed. It didn’t necessarily make for a good version of the tale, but it was interesting enough.

A story can be told in many different ways. However, adapting a story into a new medium can create challenges that subsequently have the versions feel unique. A book won’t have the music that a television special might. Animation and live action will allow for different ways to present a character or a world. A stage production will change how a set is presented or how a performance is handled. And a television special based on a stage musical that was filmed during the height of pandemic protocols will have its own limitations to deal with.

If you keep an open mind, all the different adaptations will have their own interesting qualities. They may not all be good, but they don’t take away from what the other versions did. They’re simply a new version in a different format. That is what makes storytelling so interesting. Yeah, the story might not be original. Yet there are so many ways to tell a story that something fresh could be found by simply adapting it in a new way. Don’t you think so?

Now it’s time for some notes to close this whole thing out:

• I mentioned Over the Top and Stream earlier in this post.
• Would you believe me if I said that nobody in Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical was connected to any other Sunday “Bad” Movies? Well, you better believe it. There are no connections.
• Have you seen Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical? What did you think? Do you like The Grinch as a concept? Share your thoughts in the comments or find me on Bluesky or Threads.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know. Drop it in the comments or hit me up on Bluesky or Threads.
• Okay, now for the next post. I’m hoping to get one more in before Christmas. Maybe two, if I get all the writing done that I want done. I think, because it’s slightly more popular, I’m going to write a little something about Hot Frosty. I may get around to Our Little Secret, as well. I know what I want to write about both. It’s just a matter of finding the time. Anyway, see you soon with a post about Hot Frosty.